Dark Souls isn't an RPG

[DjinnFor]

Despite thoroughly enjoying the game, I cannot honestly say that Dark Souls in an RPG, JRPG or WRPG otherwise. The games overall emphasis on survival, loneliness, and its theme of inevitability that the Age of Darkness will happen no matter what the Chosen Undead does seems to point in the direction that Dark Souls is a part of the Survival Horror genre.

First off, lets look at the game's class system. For one it is entirely pointless outside starting stat investment and equipment. You can start out as a Pyromancer but by the end of the game you can be decked out in heavy armor and have a great ax.

NPC interaction seems to be relegated towards merchants and only a select few NPC who aren't merchants. The way the game handles NPCs and how majority of the will eventually turn hollow was when I stop thinking of Dark Souls as just an RPG and more as a Survival Horror.

EDIT: Since I can't think of anything else to add to the OP, I will simply ask that if you agree that Dark Souls is more Survival Horror than RPG or vice versa. Or do you believe that using blanket terms to describe a game does that game a great disservice?

Dark Souls is as much an RPG as Infamous is an RPG. That is, it uses a scant handful of RPG mechanics to enhance the gameplay with absolutely no emphasis on them.

I disagree that it is a survival horror game. It has ominous atmosphere in some places and some use of limited resources to enhance the gameplay, but it is in the same boat as Resident Evil 4/5/6 in that respect.

It is an action adventure game.

 

[lapan]

Where did I say that? I only said your options are limited as to what you can do no matter what you create your character to be.

That applies to every single game ever.

All the role play things you make up in your head can never be reflected in the game-play of Dark Souls. Aside from the occasional you-tube video showcasing Dark Souls players creativity in trying to escape the confines of a limited game.

But rolplaying is all about creativity. If you play D&D/live action RPGs you play out a character you invented in the confine of the games rules. How is Dark Souls any different?

What does a computer game have to be for you to consider it an RPG?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

your assuming that you need a story inorder to role play.

Spoiler

you don't.

true role play comes from deciding on your own what you want to do.

You do need some kind of narrative as that is in the definition of a role-playing GAME.

All those times I've said to my GM "I want my character to do X", without specifying the exact words my character is going to use, and rolled the dice don't count, in that case. Cool, thanks for letting me know The One True Way Of Playing Games?®©.

I know you are trying really hard, but you could at least lay off the outright misinformation. If I make a character who is a good singer, I don't want to sing myself - I suck at that, I just want to say "my character sings a moving melody" and that's it. I do not play characters because I can do what they can - in fact, it's just the opposite - I want them to do what I cannot. Therefore we have skills and skill checks in place - they allow us to do exactly that - say "my character does X" and then roll the dice.

Doing and saying are 2 different things. You can't just say "my character says a funny one-liner" after a kill, you actually have to come up with the one-liner yourself, that's part of role-playing and how a person's speech skill comes into play. Same thing with bluffing. A bard singing a song is no different than a ranger making an attack (it's all in the roll and the skill/attack) whereas bluffing is different than those 2 things.

I've played a lot of table top RPGs in my life, and I have never met a DM that actually required you to act out every social skill check in a belivable manner, or at all. At most, you may be required to come up with a summary or outline of what you want your character to do, if it's something really off the wall you may get a penalty to your roll, but I've yet to meet a DM that will deny an attempt at a social skill check just because the player can't come up with a good lie, song, or speech themselves, that's like requiring the bard in your party to write actual lyrics to all his songs..

Now, most good DM's I've played with do reward bonus XP for actually acting out a conversation in a believable manner, as an incentive for roleplaying well, but again, I've never seen it actually required as part of the attempt, especially if the player is relying heavily on skills and dice rolls.

Like I've said before if you wanna have your character be funny, you have to be funny yourself. Bluffing also takes some player skill as well.

 

[cthulhuspawn82]

I know there's a diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, etc. skills. But each player's speech ability does come into play even with those kind of skills. To properly bluff, you need to make a series of semi-believable lies that lead into a rather unbelievable lie instead of just coming out with that unbelievable lie.

No, I think telling your GM what you are trying to accomplish and rolling the dice are all that should be required of a player. I know this from the time we played a game of "Vampire the Masquerade" and I was trying to charm a girl back to my place so I could make her a ghoul. The DM wanted me to role-play the "seduction" part. My response was "I have never asked a girl out before" to which he said "Neither have I". At that point we realized we should just stick to dice rolling.

 

[DoPo]

Same thing with bluffing. A bard singing a song is no different than a ranger making an attack (it's all in the roll and the skill/attack) whereas bluffing is different than those 2 things.

Look, you keep saying that and you keep being wrong.

"I spin a tale of how I was lost to make the guard let me go"

"OK, roll bluff"

"I got a X"

"Here is how you did and what happens"

You keep insisting that has never happened to me. It has. Your bluff rolls are well below the DC, I'm afraid.

 

[Savagezion]

a) Semantics.

b) Who cares?

Seriously, who cares what belongs in what genre? What insight is gained by cataloging something into one genre or the other? Video game genres in particular are so broadly defined, if they're defined at all, that knowing a game's genre can tell you very little of what playing the game is actually like.

I care about genres but think they are currently weak, unstructured, and ill defined. However, PS2 and before, these genres worked and covered everything.

I think genres will need to be readdressed soon. I think the genre name should be chosen off of it's user interface and/or combat model. Like I would be cool with categorizing Heavy Rain and Mass Effect both in a "cinematic" genre. Mass Effect has combat but it could just be considered a sub-genre of cinematic(Cinematic FPS). Also the terms "Action/Adventure" contains about 5 different types of games now with sub genres of their own. This past gen really shook up the genres and next gen is looking to do more of the same.

It's nice to be able to ask "What kind of game is this?" to have someone quickly reply Adventure TPS. And now you can think of 4 games to compare it to. Instead of currently the person responding has to list 4 different games that may seem different. Imagine if he said, "it's a mix between Gears of War and Uncharted" (which is how you say it in our current system) But that statement will throw people off making them think wtf? How? Those games are totally different. WIth the previous system you'll probably automatically see how it could compare to both of those two games if you have played them.

What type of game is this?
*precise genre*
Ah, I see. Say no more.

 

[DoPo]

What type of game is this?
*precise genre*

"Erm, what does this one do?"

Given the wide variety of games out there, you would need an equally large amount of genres to capture them in [footnote]also you'd probably want more as the variations don't lend themselves well to getting in a tight definition, thus a "smaller" more focused genre tags would be better suited for describing games. The tradeoff is, of course, that you may need half a dozen tags per game at least[/footnote], so I guess the above is going to be a more frequent response.

 

[EternallyBored]

What type of game is this?
*precise genre*

"Erm, what does this one do?"

Given the wide variety of games out there, you would need an equally large amount of genres to capture them in [footnote]also you'd probably want more as the variations don't lend themselves well to getting in a tight definition, thus a "smaller" more focused genre tags would be better suited for describing games. The tradeoff is, of course, that you may need half a dozen tags per game at least[/footnote], so I guess the above is going to be a more frequent response.

See, that's the problem with trying to label precise genres, even movies have trouble doing it, and they just have to tell a story, critics will still argue over the subtleties of action movie classification, and people still quibble over what qualifies as a tragedy or not.

Games have the added difficulty of trying to include gameplay into their genre classification, as well as story. RPG is such a meaningless term that includes very nebulous gameplay requirements, and as this thread proves, we can't even agree on what the specifics of that genre requires to be considered an RPG. Good luck trying to mix story genres into the mix with gameplay elements.

In the end, its just a descriptor, calling Dark Souls an RPG is only as useful or vague as you make the rest of your description. I can think of at least a dozen genres you could fit Dark Souls into if you really tried, and the value of those genres only extends to how you spin your description of the game.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Same thing with bluffing. A bard singing a song is no different than a ranger making an attack (it's all in the roll and the skill/attack) whereas bluffing is different than those 2 things.

Look, you keep saying that and you keep being wrong.

"I spin a tale of how I was lost to make the guard let me go"

"OK, roll bluff"

"I got a X"

"Here is how you did and what happens"

You keep insisting that has never happened to me. It has. Your bluff rolls are well below the DC, I'm afraid.

The DC changes based how you got about telling the lie.

 

[Savagezion]

What type of game is this?
*precise genre*

"Erm, what does this one do?"

Given the wide variety of games out there, you would need an equally large amount of genres to capture them in [footnote]also you'd probably want more as the variations don't lend themselves well to getting in a tight definition, thus a "smaller" more focused genre tags would be better suited for describing games. The tradeoff is, of course, that you may need half a dozen tags per game at least[/footnote], so I guess the above is going to be a more frequent response.

I like the idea of multi genres. Like 'Adventure FPS' and such. I do believe that very soon RPG will either be phased out entirely, or get a more specific defintiion and/or name. If the game has combat, it is important to mention the combat model. Everyone seems to pretty much agree with that. However, I think a more acurrate way to do it is throw in GUI with combat model. Like say, you make a FPS engine but you want to focus it on something unique for that genre like platforming and not shooting. If you have ever tried to define Mirror's Edge to someone in real life, it is very apparent the genre system in place is balls. But if we look at the GUI, it is a FPS GUI. Tt mostly uses melee combat though, messing up the whole "shooter" part even though you actually see shooter aspect from the outside in.Clear as mud? Anyways maybe first person camera needs it's own name. Just because it is first person doesn't mean the game has to play like a shooter. Let's go with VR (virtyual reality) for now. SO we'll call CoD a VRS. Mirror's edge is primarily a platformer game. So it would be a VRP. However, platforming needs a new name. To many other things compete for that word too much. I say we use calisthenics since I can't think of anything better atm. Mirror's Edge would be a VRC. It would make genres plug and play and the customer know exactly what your talking about.

Really, a lot of games fall under that catagory now days. But today's media influences future media. A system like that will seem crazy to casuals because they are mostly covered with a story premise in the film industry. Having a 20-30 genres may seem overly complex from the the outside in. However, it will have a 6-8 genre key.The first 2-3 letters will be the most important for describing the game. It could be a VR - ShRPG. That looks crazy but the VR is enough for most people to know if they want to play it.

 

[EternallyBored]

Same thing with bluffing. A bard singing a song is no different than a ranger making an attack (it's all in the roll and the skill/attack) whereas bluffing is different than those 2 things.

Look, you keep saying that and you keep being wrong.

"I spin a tale of how I was lost to make the guard let me go"

"OK, roll bluff"

"I got a X"

"Here is how you did and what happens"

You keep insisting that has never happened to me. It has. Your bluff rolls are well below the DC, I'm afraid.

The DC changes based how you got about telling the lie.

uh, no, that's entirely up to the DM, the DM's I've been with only up the DC based on how hard the NPC is to lie to, and what the PCs are trying to convince the NPC of.

You seem to be confusing DM discretion with the actual rules of the game, your DM may have required you to actually act out the lie and give DC bonuses or penalties based on it, but that is entirely up to the DM, and many DMs just don't do that. Tabletop games give a massive amount of leeway to the game master to make up or improvise their own rules and traditions.

Please stop pretending that just because you play a game one way means that those are the rules everyone follows, especially in something as nebulous as tabletop games.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Same thing with bluffing. A bard singing a song is no different than a ranger making an attack (it's all in the roll and the skill/attack) whereas bluffing is different than those 2 things.

Look, you keep saying that and you keep being wrong.

"I spin a tale of how I was lost to make the guard let me go"

"OK, roll bluff"

"I got a X"

"Here is how you did and what happens"

You keep insisting that has never happened to me. It has. Your bluff rolls are well below the DC, I'm afraid.

The DC changes based how you got about telling the lie.

uh, no, that's entirely up to the DM, the DM's I've been with only up the DC based on how hard the NPC is to lie to, and what the PCs are trying to convince the NPC of.

You seem to be confusing DM discretion with the actual rules of the game, your DM may have required you to actually act out the lie and give DC bonuses or penalties based on it, but that is entirely up to the DM, and many DMs just don't do that. Tabletop games give a massive amount of leeway to the game master to make up or improvise their own rules and traditions.

Please stop pretending that just because you play a game one way means that those are the rules everyone follows, especially in something as nebulous as tabletop games.

If you want to make a character believe something that's quite unbelievable, you can make a series of more believable lies that lead into them believing the unbelievable. That is literally part of the game; making say 3 or 4 lies that are a DC 20 check to believe something that would normally be a DC 40 check vs one lie that is a DC 40 check is literally party of the game.

 

[Jadak]

It's a game, you play a role...

So umm...Yeah.

And if you want to be super picky, it also has loot collection and stat grinding. Fits the bill for me.

 

[EternallyBored]

Same thing with bluffing. A bard singing a song is no different than a ranger making an attack (it's all in the roll and the skill/attack) whereas bluffing is different than those 2 things.

Look, you keep saying that and you keep being wrong.

"I spin a tale of how I was lost to make the guard let me go"

"OK, roll bluff"

"I got a X"

"Here is how you did and what happens"

You keep insisting that has never happened to me. It has. Your bluff rolls are well below the DC, I'm afraid.

The DC changes based how you got about telling the lie.

uh, no, that's entirely up to the DM, the DM's I've been with only up the DC based on how hard the NPC is to lie to, and what the PCs are trying to convince the NPC of.

You seem to be confusing DM discretion with the actual rules of the game, your DM may have required you to actually act out the lie and give DC bonuses or penalties based on it, but that is entirely up to the DM, and many DMs just don't do that. Tabletop games give a massive amount of leeway to the game master to make up or improvise their own rules and traditions.

Please stop pretending that just because you play a game one way means that those are the rules everyone follows, especially in something as nebulous as tabletop games.

If you want to make a character believe something that's quite unbelievable, you can make a series of more believable lies that lead into them believing the unbelievable. That is literally part of the game; making say 3 or 4 lies that are a DC 20 check to believe something that would normally be a DC 40 check vs one lie that is a DC 40 check is literally party of the game.

That has nothing to do with your point about how you have to be funny yourself to have your PC be funny, or how you actually have to act out a bluff as part of a bluff or other social skill check, even in your scenario, you can still pass multiple bluff checks with nothing more than a "I tell the guards a lie about where I was the previous night", followed by 3 checks to bluff each guard, or changing your story if you fail a check. You seem to have completely missed the reason people are challenging your earlier assertions at this point.

Even then it's still entirely up to the DM whether they will allow something like what your describing, depending on context there may be no reason for the DM to allow multiple bluff checks, or the inverse, something like an interogation may require multiple social checks with no room for a single hard check.

So again, it's only a part of the game if the DM allows it, and it still doesn't have anything to do with your earlier point that players actually act out the bluff or come up with a convincing lie yourself in order for it to count. That's what people are taking issue with, not this new random point about multiple bluffs that seems to have nothing to do with what anyone was talking about.

 

[Spearmaster]

Where did I say that? I only said your options are limited as to what you can do no matter what you create your character to be.

That applies to every single game ever.

Yes, video games are not the greatest platform for RPGs, but I would expect games claiming an RPG status to expand with more role playing options not be more limited, or hardly have them at all. I mean this is 2014.

All the role play things you make up in your head can never be reflected in the game-play of Dark Souls. Aside from the occasional you-tube video showcasing Dark Souls players creativity in trying to escape the confines of a limited game.

But rolplaying is all about creativity. If you play D&D/live action RPGs you play out a character you invented in the confine of the games rules. How is Dark Souls any different?

That's the thing there are no role playing confines playing something like D&D, the rules only make up the game portion. I cant invent a character in Dark Souls. I make a combat build, more like building a robot for which I use to kill monsters because no matter what you build the outcome is always the same, kill monsters>kill boss>repeat...end. Dark souls only lets you role play at 2 points that I can tell, choosing a covenant and picking which of the 2 endings you want and those seem to be more player decisions than that of what your character would decide, Mainly because they have no brain or personality, because they are robots programed with stats and spells and dressed up with items, armor and weapons.

I'll point to Gran Tourismo 5, It has levels, I can pick my car, paint, wheels, upgrade parts, order of the races I run. Is it an RPG? No its a racing game, even though it has all the same types of things Dark Souls does. Building a character in Dark Souls for combat and building a car in Gran Tourismo 5 for racing to me are the same thing.

What does a computer game have to be for you to consider it an RPG?

Letting the player create and role play their character so that the game will reflect their actions/decisions in a meaningful way for starters (the more the better). Giving the player meaningful options to reflect the role play features of the character they create during character creation. Character creation options that actually affect the games story in any way. A character that actually has "character" which is reflected in the game. Role Playing options. These are limited by a games story/environment/game play but should be able to exist within any RPG story/environment/game play, If the game is to limited to rationally include things like these the it shouldent be calling its self an RPG.

....I wonder if by RPG they meant Robot Playing Game....Joking

 

[lapan]

I cant invent a character in Dark Souls. I make a combat build, more like building a robot for which I use to kill monsters because no matter what you build the outcome is always the same, kill monsters>kill boss>repeat...end. Dark souls only lets you role play at 2 points that I can tell, choosing a covenant and picking which of the 2 endings you want and those seem to be more player decisions than that of what your character would decide, Mainly because they have no brain or personality, because they are robots programed with stats and spells and dressed up with items, armor and weapons.

Nothing stops you from inventing a character but yourself. Or do you only consider it roleplaying if others see you do it? Even then you still have PVP to fall back upon.

Letting the player create and role play their character so that the game will reflect their actions/decisions in a meaningful way for starters (the more the better). A character that actually has "character" which is reflected in the game. Role Playing options.

I'll give you that you have little choices that actually influence the game apart from its ending. However i disagree that a character has to be prewritten/have dialog for you to be able to roleplay him, in fact that only serves to constrict your role and limits roleplaying.

These are limited by a games story/environment/game play but should be able to exist within any RPG story/environment/game play, If the game is to limited to rationally include things like these the it shouldent be calling its self an RPG.

What

 

[DoPo]

What type of game is this?
*precise genre*

"Erm, what does this one do?"

Given the wide variety of games out there, you would need an equally large amount of genres to capture them in [footnote]also you'd probably want more as the variations don't lend themselves well to getting in a tight definition, thus a "smaller" more focused genre tags would be better suited for describing games. The tradeoff is, of course, that you may need half a dozen tags per game at least[/footnote], so I guess the above is going to be a more frequent response.

I like the idea of multi genres. Like 'Adventure FPS' and such.

Well, nearly all current games are classified with at least two genres - CoD is different to ArmA, for example and their descriptions differ - one is a modern military shooter (or other descriptors like "spunkgargleweewee") while the other is a....well, frankly I'm not sure myself as I'm not really familiar, but I think I've seen the words "simulation" and "realistic" associated with it, so let's call it a "realistic simulation shooter". The two already differ. And as I said, that's the case with nearly all games - we have action adventures, action RPG, real-time/turn based strategy and so on. It's inevitable considering games are constantly evolving, expanding, and changing. And that is a big part of the problem classifying them - you can draw arbitrary lines to separate them and yet they can and do step over those lines then even go into uncharted regions for extra complexity. And the uncharted regions may already contain some of the other games that exist already, but it wasn't a big enough thing to label. Something that is still going to be present if the classification system is overhauled.

I do believe that very soon RPG will either be phased out entirely, or get a more specific defintiion and/or name.

To be honest - there pretty much are no RPGs. No "pure" ones anyway - it's sort of impossible to say "this game is an RPG" and just that - partly because of the above phenomena where games rea already multigenre, and partly because of what this thread shows - RPG is too much of a nebulous and unclear term.

If you have ever tried to define Mirror's Edge to someone in real life, it is very apparent the genre system in place is balls. But if we look at the GUI, it is a FPS GUI. Tt mostly uses melee combat though, messing up the whole "shooter" part even though you actually see shooter aspect from the outside in.Clear as mud?

Actually, Mirror's Edge is really easy to explain in few short words - it is a first person free runner.

Anyways maybe first person camera needs it's own name.

Incidentally it has - as I mentioned, it's "first person".

Really, a lot of games fall under that catagory now days. But today's media influences future media. A system like that will seem crazy to casuals because they are mostly covered with a story premise in the film industry. Having a 20-30 genres may seem overly complex from the the outside in. However, it will have a 6-8 genre key.The first 2-3 letters will be the most important for describing the game. It could be a VR - ShRPG. That looks crazy but the VR is enough for most people to know if they want to play it.

Again - I do not see this working. Who decides what the biggest aspect of the games is? If we are breaking the genres up into many smaller ones, there may as well be many that would pre prominent. Also, considering it's unlikely for there to be a unified classification, since there is no central "authority", we can quickly see that the genres can differ and differ a lot accross people who describe them. One person may apply one set of genres to a game, another may apply other set of genres. There could very well be both correct, but where do you get the total number of genres? Or going further, the two people above may call one genre by different names, or one may have one name for two of the genres of the other person. And so on.

Same thing with bluffing. A bard singing a song is no different than a ranger making an attack (it's all in the roll and the skill/attack) whereas bluffing is different than those 2 things.

Look, you keep saying that and you keep being wrong.

"I spin a tale of how I was lost to make the guard let me go"

"OK, roll bluff"

"I got a X"

"Here is how you did and what happens"

You keep insisting that has never happened to me. It has. Your bluff rolls are well below the DC, I'm afraid.

The DC changes based how you got about telling the lie.

It's hilarious you keep saying that and quoting my example where I don't tell a lie in any particular way. DC must be sky high for you.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

That has nothing to do with your point about how you have to be funny yourself to have your PC be funny, or how you actually have to act out a bluff as part of a bluff or other social skill check, even in your scenario, you can still pass multiple bluff checks with nothing more than a "I tell the guards a lie about where I was the previous night", followed by 3 checks to bluff each guard, or changing your story if you fail a check. You seem to have completely missed the reason people are challenging your earlier assertions at this point.

Even then it's still entirely up to the DM whether they will allow something like what your describing, depending on context there may be no reason for the DM to allow multiple bluff checks, or the inverse, something like an interogation may require multiple social checks with no room for a single hard check.

So again, it's only a part of the game if the DM allows it, and it still doesn't have anything to do with your earlier point that players actually act out the bluff or come up with a convincing lie yourself in order for it to count. That's what people are taking issue with, not this new random point about multiple bluffs that seems to have nothing to do with what anyone was talking about.

How is your character supposed to be funny if you're not funny? There's no "humor" skill or anything.

I never said you have to "act out" a bluff as part of a bluff. I'm saying that how you go about making a bluff is important. If you wanna say make a lie about the king making a new law/decree, and you first lie about being some kind of officer of the kingdom, making that bluff check about fake law/decree will have a better chance of passing. The way you lead into the main lie you are going for greatly impacts your success in bluffing, which has everything to with your own personal skill.

 

[DoPo]

I never said you have to "act out" a bluff as part of a bluff.

Doing and saying are 2 different things. You can't just say "my character says a funny one-liner" after a kill, you actually have to come up with the one-liner yourself, that's part of role-playing and how a person's speech skill comes into play. Same thing with bluffing.

Your bluff checks are still failing. You can always stop, you know.

 

[stroopwafel]

Dark Souls is probably one of the purest RPGs I ever played. You get to choose your own character, there is zero background story, the game itself actually considers you irrelevant and you have to progress not only through its legion of challenges on your own merit but also your understanding of the events that took place and your role in it.

You pick a role in a game you have to figure out entirely on your own. I don't know how much more 'RPG' it can get.